Seventy-nine steps, almost in the backyard. Leave your shoes at the bottom and, of an evening, you can climb from shade to sunshine, cool to warm, and feel it through the whole of you. God is mostly made of earth here – buckeyes and flower petals, prairie grass and leaves gone to tattered lace. 

You don’t run those steps, do you?

At the top, a cemetery that won’t abide with sorrow. The bones here rest easy; they weep no more. Above them, a vault of sky, fading blue and smooth as porcelain. Here are massive oaks predating the ancestors of the longest dead, roots dug down to fiery core, bent arms outstretched, scooping sky.

I sprint, all the way to the top, fast as I can.

Not a spirit or a spook in sight. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and a soul flies onward, into the glaze of sun. Not looking back, not peering down. Transforming, remaking itself from flesh and bone, he/she/black/white/straight/gay into layers and layers of light and love. Imagine.  
It’s easy, actually, in this place.

You’ll turn an ankle, bruise a shin, roll to the bottom, fall down and break your crown.

Kids play here. It’s close to town, after all, and do they dishonor the dead with their laughter? The gargantuan trees are made for Hide-and-Seek, the buckeyes for tossing, the headstones for shivers and shrieks; it’s good to be so alive in a cemetery.
 
At the top, I fling myself down, breathless with the rush, and the earth is sun-warm beneath me, grass like flannel, sky like cotton and just me, rolled up in the in-between.

Dragon and Damsel Flies dart, sleek wings glistening in the long shadows, and the early fireflies begin a dance between the gravestones. A blink at Filbert Hodgepodge, and a flit past Eunice Whosit, catch-me-if-you-can.

I can. I can cup the light in my hands just to see the magic.

The old stones rear their heads against the pink and lemon light – arches and towers, capped like acorns, like turbans. Mossy, ancient, the names worn beyond legible. Carved hands, carved roses, fat cherubs and lambs resting over “Our Darling Babe”s. Nobody there, nobody home, and that is more comfort than sorrow. There’s no rest in the ground, and maybe there is no rest at all, because dead isn’t dead, not really, but a state of life more alive than ever before. Imagine being nowhere and everywhere, all and nothing and all made up of light.

Is that death?

Over here. Grandparents under heart-shaped stones, a lost little baby named for a flower, Joseph Henry who came here first, back when corn was planted in check rows and picked by hand. They’re not here but they’re not gone either and, like the precious blood and body, that is only possible if you believe it so.

Why if we believe, do we even call it death? 

“Death” better fits a darkness of the soul, does it not? A twist, a grudge, a hatred-blackness-despair. But . . . not this. Not this light, this easy peace, this jubilant rush to God. 

Seventy-nine steps, from evening to night, sunshine to stars. Back again, running.

​In Celtic mythology, the ash tree – Uinsinn, pronounced ooshin - is The Tree of Life. It’s said to have roots equal in length and spread to its branches. Imagine, then, all that’s happening beneath the surface – the pull of opposites, each side reaching, stretching just as far as it can. From their struggle? A magnificent creation of beauty and light.

Ancient folklore noted the balance of three in this scenario  - branches representing the gods, the trunk linked to humanity, roots entrenched in the underworld. Thus, “Everything is connected, and no action taken without widespread consequences.” It’s good to think about that in a world gone crazy. How the even the smallest acts born of ignorance or fear can begin to poison the whole. Yet, ipso facto, the opposite holds true.  A loving act at the roots will strengthen the entire tree.
What if human beings were to think as trees?

Witch lore credited the ash with magical properties and witches made tea from the bark to attract their true love. They burned ash wood for prosperity, slept with the leaves under their pillows to woo prophetic dreams, and carved  broomsticks from the branches.

Saint Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland with an ash branch and Irish emigrants to America brought pieces of ash with them as a charm against drowning
Ah, to remember our magic? What we could do!

In British folklore, the ash was credited with a range of healing properties, mostly to do with pediatric health. Newborn babies were given a teaspoon of ash sap, and ailing children were passed naked through a cleft carved in the tree. Afterwards, the cleft was bound together to heal over as the child also healed.
Imagine, in a world bereft of healers, having that gift at your fingertips, in your heart. Imagine the faith it takes to open yourself and bind other’s wounds.

And yet, here, in the midst of the lunacy we call life, is the tree. It’s no mistake that green is color of the heart chakra, which represents love, forgiveness, compassion, hope – and neither is it hard to believe that God created the tree a few days ahead of mankind.
​
Maybe someday we’ll catch up.